''Time Slave'' is a 1975 hybrid of

historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...

and

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

John Norman John Frederick Lange Jr. (born June 3, 1931) is an American writer who, as John Norman, has authored the '' Gor'' series of science fantasy novels. Norman is also a philosophy professor. Early life and education Lange was born in Chicago, I ...

. In this book, Norman presents his personal theories of human

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

, exemplified by the case of a modern 20th century woman sent back in time 20,000 years or more; he mourns the loss of human evolutionary fitness and distortion of "

natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...

social relations A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...

which, in his view, occurred when

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

spread and farmers squeezed hunter/gatherers to the ecological margins. ''Time Slave'' features Norman's social philosophy of male-dominance (as also in his ''

Gor Gor () is the fictional setting for a series of sword and planet novels written by philosophy professor John Lange, writing as John Norman. The setting was first described in the 1966 novel ''Tarnsman of Gor''. The series is inspired by science f ...

'' series), and expresses an unexplained connection between female sexual subordination and the speeding up of the development of space travel.

External links

* 1975 American novels American science fiction novels Novels set in prehistory Prehistoric people in popular culture Novels about time travel DAW Books books Gor {{1970s-hist-novel-stub